John Ashbery Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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I was thinking of going to London drama schools or to New York, because France didn't accommodate the things I wanted to do in film.
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I approach these people from a standpoint of love. How were they loved? How do they love? What's going on in their heart? There's that that I think about with every role.
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There ought to be more grants that go to people in their late twenties and early thirties. That's a crucial age, although it's very hard to judge who is worth supporting and who is not. Looking back on my own life, I see that was the period when I was closest to giving up as a novelist and when I most needed some encouragement.
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I'm too self-serious for a comedy.
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Poverty breeds lack of self-reliance.
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Wise choices can put us in control of situations where we might otherwise be tempted to compromise our principles. We cannot control all that happens to us; however, we can choose to be in control of our responses.
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Once every five hundred years or so, a summary statement about poetry comes along that we can't imagine ourselves living without.
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When you're young and queer and closeted, you can end up in this place where you regard your straight peers as the enemy.
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I have often heard that the novel is dead. But I see novels produced, I don't know how many a week, in France. I have the impression it's carrying along quite well.
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Thinking differently is my strength.
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I want to have a long career.
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When I decide I want something, I go in like an Exocet missile.
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A nation's economy is more than its markets, tastes, technologies and property rights.
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Part of the reason I sort of shot out like a cannon out of Michigan and left home at such an early age is because I had to feel independent.
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The test is to recognize the mistake, admit it and correct it. To have tried to do something and failed is vastly better than to have tried to do nothing and succeeded.
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'Wicked' gave us a story that 'The Wizard of Oz' did not. Two sides to every story.
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I punish myself more than anybody else does if I am stupid about my actions, and I suffer, really suffer.
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I heard what was said of the universe, heard it and heard it of several thousand years; it is middling well as far as it goes - but is that all?
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..we'll deal with it, because the good outweighs the bad.
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Well, very long ago, on the spot where the Wild Wood waves now, before ever it had planted itself and grown up to what it now is, there was a city - a city of people, you know.
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Women must know themselves better than anyone. If you have ugly legs, wear long dresses. If you have long, great legs, show them.
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Possibly the best suggestion in condensed form, as to how to live, was given by my old Headmaster, Dr. Haig Brown, in 1904, when he wrote his Recipe for Old Age. A diet moderate and spare, Freedom from base financial care, Abundant work and little leisure, A love of duty more than pleasure, An even and contented mind In charity with all mankind, Some thoughts too sacred for display In the broad light of common day, A peaceful home, a loving wife, Children, who are a crown of life; These lengthen out the years of man Beyond the Psalmist's narrow span.
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I write with experiences in mind, but I don't write about them, I write out of them.
